Poll: Most Texans want statewide smoking ban (Midland, Franklin: theater, safety)

[ClarenceBodiker]

Originally Posted by TexasHorseLady

And not all that long ago the consensus was that smoking was "pretty healthy for you". As I said earlier in this thread, doctors recommended it because scientific evidence showed that it was.

Again, if you think that the scenario I mentioned is all that far-fetched, you're either naive or so self-centered that you think that ONLY those rights that you object to will ever be targeted, and yours would NEVER be.

History shows otherwise.

Really? Tell me, how long ago was smoking deemed healthy for you?
51 years ago when my father started smoking, people knew it wasn't healthy. Sure, they didn't know it was cancerous as they do now, but it wasn't considered good for you. And let's run with your hypothetical that we discover milk is bad for us one day. Let's pretend we find out it's actually deadly and cancerous. Again, how does that affect the person sitting next to you? Drinking cancerous milk will not give the person next to you exposure to the same dangers. That is the fact that you keep ignoring which would make your scenario relevant to this debate.

And saying that people cannot smoke in public is not going to suddenly cross some line of civil or private rights in this country that hasn't already been crossed 100 times before. This is far from unprecedented. For exhibit A, please see the list of every drug in this country that has been made illegal. Please quit hanging on to some libertarian daydream about an America that has never existed. The government has made the general health of this country its business for the better part of its existence. This isn't "1984" coming into fruition.

[TexasHorseLady]

Smoking was promoted by doctors as being healthy during my childhood - which would have been about 50 years ago.


No one is forcing you, by the way, to go into a smoking permitted establishment and be exposed to smoke unless you just want to do so and throw a hissy fit to make a point. As for being exposed to smoke in the outdoors, I take it you do not use a car?

As for milk, I noted that milk AND PRODUCTS CONTAINING MILK would be banned, under that scenario. Because the milk would be hidden and, according to some, causes health problems for humans, and humans would be being exposed to it whether they wanted to be or not.

IHowever, I've just remembered that getting into religious arguments never works, and that smoking is nothing if not a religious argument on the part of the anti-smoking (as distinguished from the nonsmokers, of which I am one - I don't care for smoking, but I care for our rights a heck of a lot more than I don't care for smoking).

If only it didn't have to do with rights and people being so obtuse as to think that they can get rid of the rights of others without getting rid of their own in the process.

[HtownLove]

LOL, I just noticed all the Statewide smoking ban passed threads below.

It will only be time for Texas since Houston, Dallas San Antonio and Austin have already passed bans.

horselady you can choose to not drink milk if you don't want to. Whether you do or not doesn't hurt anyone

[blkgiraffe]

I'm neutral to the issue because I do think people have the right to destroy their own bodies, but it becomes an issue when people can't respect other people's space and feelings. I don't smoke and I'd appreciate if people not smoke around me.

[TexasHorseLady]

If not milk, how about salt? NYC is leading the way there for a ban on salt.

Like I said, religion cannot be argued.

[HtownLove]

Originally Posted by TexasHorseLady

If not milk, how about salt? NYC is leading the way there for a ban on salt.

Like I said, religion cannot be argued.

I am totally for a ban against people throwing salt in other peoples eyes in places of public accommodation.

[Annie53]

Originally Posted by ClarenceBodiker

So just to be clear, you are 100% in favor of decriminalizing crack, cocaine, heroine, meth, marijuana, hallucinogens, and all other illegal drugs and allowing these drugs to be used in public, right?

Ummmm, tobacco is a LEGAL product.

So, is alcohol, which is known to cause a great deal of social ills. People drive drunk, abuse others, rob, kill, and rape under the influence......yet no one seems to have a problem with it, society wholeheartedly accepts alcohol.

Don't you find that kind of hypocritical?

Don't you think alcohol should be added to your list?

[HtownLove]

Originally Posted by Annie53

Ummmm, tobacco is a LEGAL product.

So, is alcohol, which is known to cause a great deal of social ills. People drive drunk, abuse others, rob, kill, and rape under the influence......yet no one seems to have a problem with it, society wholeheartedly accepts alcohol.

Don't you find that kind of hypocritical?

Don't you think alcohol should be added to your list?

Alcohol is regulated, just like cigarettes.


Now drinking on its own is not inherently dangerous. It is drinking in combination with something else that is dangerous.

So someone drinking in a bar isn't going to cause you to get run over by a car. It is someone who drinks and then goes off driving that is dangerous. Therefore, drinking and driving is regulated.

smoking on the other hand is dangerous all by itself. just lighting up harms people. So that is what the government is willing to regulate.

and fyi, society doesn't wholeheartedly accept alcohol.

[TexasHorseLady]

Originally Posted by HtownLove

I am totally for a ban against people throwing salt in other peoples eyes in places of public accommodation.

That's not what NYC's proposed ban is aimed at. It's aimed at requiring chefs in restaurants to change their recipes to leave out, or radically reduce, salt in their food so that people won't get to eat it unless they salt it at the table. Now, any cook worth their salt (interesting old phrase, that) knows that WHEN you salt is as important as how much salt is added, and that people are much more inclined to oversalt their food when not enough is added at the right time during cooking - much more than would be added during the cooking, in fact. So the very people who are pushing the salt ban clearly have no idea what they're talking about, they're acting in a kneejerk fashion to a popular idea that's based on very little actual facts.

Even the idea that salt raises blood pressure? Applies to a very small portion of the population that is "reactive" and not the population as a whole. It would be like banning bees because I have to carry an epipen lest I get stung, rather than requiring me to take responsibility for staying away from bees, or banning peanuts because some people have an allergic reaction to them.

This applies to most of the things that people want to trample other people's rights over, while steadfastly thinking that nothing that THEY like or think good would ever have the same done to it.

This has nothing to do with smoking, and everything to do with how deep in the mud you're willing to stomp the Constitution in order to make other people do what you want them to. Pure and simple.

Of course, there's a lot of that going around these days. More's the pity. The human impulse that was responsible for justifying the Inquisition and the Crusades are not a thing of the past, not hardly.

[getmeoutofhere]

Originally Posted by TexasHorseLady

This has nothing to do with smoking, and everything to do with how deep in the mud you're willing to stomp the Constitution in order to make other people do what you want them to. Pure and simple.

Uh, what?

Your lack of understanding about what the Constitution is appalling.